


stay with me, you don't need to run

by thursdayknight



Series: like canon but gayer 'verse [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Asexual Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove Comes Back, Billy Hargrove Has Powers, Billy's powers are luck based, Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, Fighting Monsters, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Monster Hunters, No Porn, Not A Happy Ending, Post-Season/Series 03, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21526423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thursdayknight/pseuds/thursdayknight
Summary: And Billy killed that monster but this might just kill him. His heart is slowly but steadily frosting over and this really might just kill him.
Relationships: Steve Harrington/Billy Hargrove
Series: like canon but gayer 'verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551490
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	stay with me, you don't need to run

"Steve!" 

Billy shouts his name but it sounds muffled, distorted. Everything is muffled and distorted, like Steve's experiencing it from underwater. He watches as Billy slams his hands together, then grabs his axe from where it's landed a few feet away from where he's fallen, watches as Billy swings it wildly at the monster before them. 

Billy came back different, Steve knows that and has for a while now but seeing it in action is always a little bit… strange. Steve isn't quite sure how to explain it and Billy isn't always entirely convinced it's even a real thing; it's nothing quite as obvious as how Eleven can move things with her mind, but it's… _something._ Billy can just sort of… make things happen, make sure he hits with full force every time, make sure hits avoid him, always find exactly what he's looking for, that kind of… _something_. And it happens, whatever it is, it happens every time Billy slams his hands together like that. This time all of Billy's hits land perfectly and all of the monster's many tentacle-like arms miss Billy every time they try to reach out for him, like somehow he's just always in exactly the right (or would that be wrong?) place each time in a way that just has to be some sort of magic, it just has to.

Somewhere to the left… or maybe to the right, Steve isn't sure and his head hurts too much to bother to check, Eleven screams and Steve watches as the monster floats up a few inches off the ground. Billy snarls like the great, wounded beast that he is and slams into it with his axe. He pulls the axe out and screams again, slamming the axe back into the same exact spot, deepening the wound like the monster is some kind of tree he's trying to knock down.

And Steve… laughs.

Billy is attacking a monster with an axe like he's chopping down a tree and Steve himself brought a steel baseball bat because his old nail bat shattered after slamming into one too many monsters and to help them out they've got a seventeen year old girl with special powers that allow her to move things with her mind.

Like, this is the way that their lives are going. They live in a small, crappy town in the middle of nowhere and they fight monsters with stuff not entirely intended to be weapons and it's hilarious. It's so freaking hilarious he just can't help but laugh. 

He gets so lost in how freaking funny the whole thing is that he doesn't even notice the battle is over until he sees Billy kneeling in front of him, face coated in something red like blood but grittier and thicker and way worse smelling and his eyes are shining and he's saying Steve's name over and over and over again almost like you'd say a prayer and still Steve can't stop laughing. Somehow, simultaneously, it's too funny and he can't remember what the joke is anymore.

Then something sharp and stinging and brutal registers and Steve sees Billy's hand withdrawing from his face, feels the thick, cloying heaviness of the goo left behind on his cheek and he bites his tongue to keep the laughter still trying to spill out of him in check.

"Steve," Billy says, voice achingly soft, "Stevie, can you hear me?"

"He hit his head _real hard_ ," Eleven says from somewhere behind him. "Heard the crack." 

Billy looks up, probably at her, and scowls before looking back at Steve. 

There's so much pain on Billy's face that even Steve can read it; there's so much guilt Steve wishes he could just reach up and wipe away like he wants to just reach up and wipe away all of that gooey filth Billy doesn't even seem to notice is there, concerned as he is with staring at Steve like he'll break, like he'll crack, no, like he _has_ cracked, which, yeah, probably he has at this point if the pain radiating from where his head hit the ground is any indication. Then Billy's biting down on his lip, smearing the blood-gunk there and saying, "Do you think you can walk?" and Steve nods, or at least he thinks he does. 

He's pretty sure he does.

Or then maybe he doesn't, he can't really tell with the way every second that passes seems to take a different amount of time to well, pass, and Steve thinks he could spend an eternity just trying to figure out what that look in Billy's eyes right now means. It's not sadness, that's not it, it's… he doesn't know what it is other than that it's very big and very important and very electric and _very_ terrifying and feeling pushed by the depth of that look and the sheer importance of it, he tries to get up, tries to push himself up and out of the dirt but his arms wobble halfway there and send him crashing back down, down into the dirt, making Billy curse, "Fuck!" 

Then, "Okay, bad idea, but don't worry, I've got you." Billy's big, warm hands slide up under his armpits and Billy drags him up, up and into the light and into his warmth, Billy's so warm, always so warm like he's on fire and he says it again, "I've got you, I've got you, babe," and - and - and then - Steve loses himself after that.

///

"We need a hospital," Eleven says. "Now." 

"I know," Billy grunts. "You drive, I'll sit with him and come back to get my car later. Now help me with him, would you?"

Eleven nods and steps forward, grabbing Steve by the legs as Billy grabs under his arms. They lift on the count of three and somehow manage to shuffle him to Eleven's beat-up, half rusted out pickup truck. 

Getting him into the truck is an ordeal in and of itself and it has Billy thinking he probably should have just given Eleven the keys to his car and had her drive it because if Steve dies because this took too long, if Steve dies because he didn't think to just _give somebody else the keys for once, for fuck's sake_ then he's setting the fucking car on fire.

The silence on the drive to the hospital is a crushing, desperate sort of thing and it's almost worse than the dead weight of Steve lying pressed up against him. He's so still, so fucking still and Billy keeps running his hands through Steve's hair, coating it in dirt and dust and monster guts and still not able to stop touching him, needing near constant re-affirmation that Steve is still here, no matter how uncharacteristically quiet he's being right now. And Billy wants to say something but he doesn't know what, doesn't know if Steve would hear him, could hear him, christ if Steve can't hear him, if he never wakes up from this - 

"He'll be okay," Eleven says, her eyes still on the road even as she reaches a hand out and puts it over Billy's other one. "He's strong." 

Billy snorts. Saying someone is "strong" is just about as cliche as saying that they're a "fighter" even if Steve is both because it doesn't seem like that matters right now, doesn't seem like it's gonna help. He wants to yell at Eleven for saying something so dumb but he doesn't, he can't, not with the way the girl bleeds sincerity with every single syllable she speaks so he keeps his rage to himself, lets it coat his skin and burn just underneath everything, allows it to keep him warm even as he feels his heart trying to frost over. Then on the next inhale the rage starts to surge through his veins like his heart is producing it, trying by any means possible to keep his panic in check, to keep him from crying like a child. 

They arrive at the hospital faster than any speed limit would allow and they wrestle Steve out of the truck, drag him inside and start screaming for help, both of their voices mixing together in a wild crescendo of, " _Help! Please!_ _Somebody!"_

It doesn't take long for the nurses in the emergency room to spring into action, running for a bed to lay Steve down on and taking him from Billy, taking him where he can't follow. He almost doesn't let them, keeps his hands on Steve as long as he can before Eleven softly calling his name stops him. 

He watches hopelessly as a team of people in scrubs pushes the bed Steve's on through a big, fat white set of double doors with a big, fat red stripe on them, clearly telling anybody not either in scrubs or injured to kindly fuck right off and stay back.

Billy lets Eleven drag him to a chair and before he's even fully sat down in it there's a nurse on him, asking if he's okay, pointing at the blood and dirt he's covered in like clearly, he's not okay, this is not okay and he needs to be checked out and this is not okay and -

"I may never be okay again, now please fuck off," he says with no bite. All the fight's rushed out of him and he's not expecting it to return unless Steve does. 

Until Steve does…

But Steve might not...

"We're fine," Eleven says delicately, a hand on the nurse's shoulder, comforting but also pushing her away. "Promise." 

The nurse leaves with a look that says she'll be back and Billy buries his face in his hands to avoid thinking about it, to avoid thinking about everything, but it doesn't help because when he closes his eyes he starts hearing Steve's hysterical laughter and remembers the sheer terror of seeing one of the tentacles from that _thing_ whipping out and smacking him, the metal bat going flying as he falls in the most perfect of wrong ways to smash his head on the ground with a resounding and heartbreaking crack.

And Billy killed that monster but this might just kill him. His heart is slowly but steadily frosting over and this really might just kill him.

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty, pretty please leave a comment if you liked this fic! I really love getting comments. 
> 
> Also, I have a [tumblr](https://gideongrace.tumblr.com/), if you wanna come yell at me over there about ace stuff or harringrove.


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